Grey Lament
by Talisha Hibdon
Summary: Samwise laments on that which he has lost to the sea. A companion peice for 'Chapters Yet to Come' and the first prologue to Dream With Hope. SLASH! If you don't like it, tough! Frodo and Samwise 4EVER!


**Grey Lament **  
_by Talisha Hibdon _

_Author note: This is a Slash or M/M romance fic, so if that sort of thing bothers you, leave now. The Lord of the Rings and its characters do not belong to me (though I'd dearly love to have both Frodo and Samwise in my possession ^_^). They belong to the wonderful mastermind that is J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm thinking of expanding this into a much larger fic, but this will due for the time being. I believe it will stand on it's own quite well. It's set some 15 years after Frodo left Middle-earth. Please feel free to review! Seriously, Sha-chan loves reviews!_  


I hate the sea.   
  
She's treacherous. She'll appear beautiful and peaceful on the outside, but inside she's teeming with dark thing, things with eyes and teeth, and all other forms of danger. She's hungry. She'll toss you about with her waves for a game and swallow you up before you can save yourself. She's cruel, and cold. She drowns you in her wet depths and doesn't allow you to breath. She's selfish. At a whim she takes those who dare to tread her, often taking loved ones away and keeping them to herself.  
  
The Elves may love it all they like, but to me the sea will always mean sorrow and grief. It will always symbolize to me all that I ever really loved becoming lost to me in the cold gray morning of that day. That day when Mr. Frodo passed over the sea, down the Straight Road, to Aman, the Undying Lands. I will not called that realm Blessed, for if it is blessed, it is only because Frodo dwells there now. Were that I was so blessed!   
  
I hate the Elves now as well. I had once loved the Elves and longed to hear about them and to see all their Elf-magic. To be among the Elves in their own lands was to me one of the best things in Middle-earth. What rot. How blind must I have been not to see the best thing in Middle-earth was already right in front of my very nose. And those very same Elves took him away with them. They ran to hide from the real world, and they took Frodo away with them, as if he too were a coward like them. Now, all I long to hear is Frodo's voice, and all I long to see is his face smiling back at me the way it used to, before things changed.  
  
Yes, it seems that a lot of things have changed since those simple days before the Ring came and turned our world upside down. I remember the days when I was but a lad and the only worries I had were how to help my Gaffer pull the weeds out of Mr. Bilbo's garden before they suffocated the tatters. I remember how Mr. Frodo and I used to play all day, even though he was twelve years my senior. Poor Frodo had looked so lonesome all the time, after having his parent die and everything. I couldn't help but want to be with him all the time and try to drive his loneliness away. I think I succeeded, as he would always smile his brightest when saw me running up to meet him every morning with the Gaffer following behind.  
  
But I have to say my most fondest memories are those of us sitting under the tree that sat atop of Bag End, reading to each other from the one of old Mr. Bilbo's books. I would often lean my head on his shoulder and hold his hand as he read to me in that soothing voice of his for hours, sometimes well past sunset. I surely loved him, even in those simpler times, before I even knew what it really meant to love a body, through and through. That lesson was to be learned years later, when the Quest was laid down on Mr. Frodo's lap. It should never have had to come to him. It wasn't what he deserved. He deserved to spend the rest of his days in peace in the Shire, reading from the great Red Book to little Hobbit lads and lasses, or smoking his pipe while I worked his garden. It didn't turn out that way though.  
  
He had told me that fateful day that he was leaving because he had been hurt too deeply by everything that had happened. That I believe well enough, but I wonder, was it wholly due to the Ring? Or perhaps there was more to it than that?  
  
I had another row with Rose today. It seems to be happening a lot more often lately, especially now that she's pregnant again. This time it was about what to name our tenth child. She's set on the name Tolman, and I suppose I can't very well blame her, that being her father's name and all, but I feel that it's high time we named one of our children Bilbo. I feel she's been putting it off long enough as it is. When I suggested the name, she actually frowned at it and said, "You want to be having our child called names like Mad Bilbo by both children and the neighbors? Isn't it enough that our first son is named after that Mr. Frodo?" Aye me, it was a gorgeous row as had never been in Hobbiton before. I do not care if she's my wife or my mother, I won't have a body insulting Mr. Frodo, not after everything he's done for Middle-earth.  
  
We'd a had a similar argument when time came to name our second child. She said she didn't want the local hobbits speaking badly about our son because of his name's sake. I, of course, would have none of it. I told Mr. Frodo that I meaned to name my first son after him and I intended on keeping that promise. "And any Hobbit who'd degrade a child because he's named after the finest Hobbit whose ever lived has minds no wiser than nails, and less sharp besides," I said. That of course was the end of the matter.  
  
I begin to fear that I might have come to hate Rose as well, the poor lass. She doesn't deserve it, I know. She's given me a wonderful family and is as beautiful and pleasant a wife as could be wanted, when she isn't choosing to have quarrels with me. She's a terrific cook and housekeeper, she's marvelous with the kids, and the neighbors all adore her. I'm always hearing compliments at my office in Michel Delvings about how lucky I am to have her for a wife. I suppose I am lucky to have her, and I should be loving her with all my mind and soul, not growing to resent her.  
  
But it can't be helped. In my mind, from the moment I took her for my wife I knew things had started to go wrong for me and Mr. Frodo. Even during the Quest, when things were at their darkest, Mr. Frodo always turned to me when in need of friendship and support. He was always open and honest with me. When he was in pain, he let me know about it. When he was afraid, he looked to me for strength. When he was sad, it was into my arms he came for comfort. That's the way I wanted it. I wanted to be his rock, to be there to take care of him whenever he needed it. That's what I perceived as my purpose, and I never wanted to let go of that.  
  
That's why it was so hard for me when he later came to ask me to move into Bag End with him. I wanted to, more than anything. But there was always my Gaffer, sitting in the corner of my mind, old and weary, waiting for me to take up Miss Rose Cotton as my wife and join our two families together after all the long years of friendship between us. If I had refused to marry Rose, it would have broken the Gaffer's poor old heart. I couldn't have done that. I thought when I told Mr. Frodo about it that he had understood. I can see now that I was wrong. He hadn't understood, and I think it broke him. My dear Mr. Frodo...  
  
He'd hardly said anything at the wedding and his smiles were always somewhat forced. I knew he wasn't entirely happy. He never could lie to his old Sam. He even disappeared from the party long before the end. I still have no notion what he ran off to do, and I was always fearing to ask him afterward. I suppose now that, at the time, I wished to think only happy thoughts, of my new life with both wife and master, in the home I've dreamed of living in since as long as I could remember.   
  
That very evening, as I fumbled about not know quite what to do in my new marriage bed, I swear I had heard him walk past my door, at least a dozen times, and his footsteps even came to a stop just outside the door and did not move again until Rose had finished with me.   
  
After that he began to distance himself from me. Me! His Sam. I could hardly bear it. He'd come to me less and less often looking for help with anything and I knew he hid his illness from me on more than one occasion. And there were those nights where he'd scream in his nightmares, so much that I'd come a running to his bedroom door like lightning. And still he refused to admit me into his room. He had begun to lock his door at night. He didn't want to trouble me, I knew, but it still hurt like a knife in the heart to be shut out of his life like that. He'd a never done that before, not even at the Cracks of Doom.  
  
It was not long until he had begun to lock himself up in his room at all times, except when he wished to eat, and even then he was silent but for a few polite comments about the food and the weather. Rosie of course never noticed (she's such a simple heart) but I could see pain in his eyes whenever I caught him looking my way. Something was dreadfully wrong and he wouldn't tell me. And like a fool, I never understood until it was too late what was going to happen eventually. If I had known that he would up and leave Bag End so soon, I would have broken down his door myself in order to spend more time with him.  
  
And now he's gone, far away from Bag End and Hobbiton. And the Shire... And me. Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin had tried to comfort me on the lonely way back home, that dreadful day, but I wouldn't hear of it. My heart had been torn in two and the better half of it had been carried off over the sea between Mr. Frodo's nine fingers.   
  
Rose herself was truly a marvel. When she learned from me what Mr. Frodo had done, she had simply replied, "Well he's off with his own kind now, so he must be much happier now. Do cheer up!" I was so stunned by her careless reaction to my distress that I was brought to weeping with a bent head over my little Elanor. I never spoke to her again about Mr. Frodo after that.   
  
I love my family dearly, make no mistake, even as the seed of resentment is planted for Rose. It's hard business trying to love a wife you secretly blame for driving your most beloved Hobbit friend away.  
  
Now its been fifteen years since that day. I'm now serving my second term as Mayor of Michel Delvings. Rosie, as I've already stated earlier, is pregnant again with our tenth child and all the little ones run and tumble and play about the Hill as healthy and happy as little conies. My Elanor is growing up to be so beautiful (she's been made into a maid of honor by Queen Arwen), and my little Frodo is as strong and curious a lad as ever was born. How handsome they shall all grow up to be. I have no doubt they shall all be the pride and joy of the Shire.  
  
My only wish and desire is that my own Mr. Frodo was here to witness it. That alone would at last make my life complete and my heart whole again. But even though he's not here, I try my hardest to be the best dad and mayor I can be. And I hide my pain from them all. I don't want to trouble them with these terribly sorrowful thoughts that seem to enjoy residing in the far corners of my mind, driving me to weep and bite into my pillow at night.   
  
Mr. Frodo once said long ago that I shan't be sad forever, and that someday the pain will disappear.   
  
It hasn't. It won't.  
  
He also said that I would be whole once he left.  
  
I'm not. I won't.  
  
Frodo, Frodo, my dear. You misunderstood me when I said I was torn in two. I was never good with words, as you well know. I meant to say that I was torn because I wanted to be with you more than anything, and yet I wasn't at all sure what you wanted, plus the Gaffer had his own ideas about my future. I was torn between my own desires and everyone else's. If you had only told me once that you felt for me they way I still feel for you, I would have ignored my obligations to marry Rose, for all the wishes of my Gaffer. You were all that mattered to me. I'm not sure it is at all one of the reasons why you sailed away from me, but if I had known it would mean losing you, I would not have married her.  
  
Oh just listen to me! Here I am, rambling on about not marrying Rose, and I'm not even sure if that was the reason why you left. For all I know, you could have not cared for me at all and had only put up with me because I wouldn't leave you alone. I so wish you were here, so that I could finally ask you...  
  
But you're not here. You're gone, and I'm still here, and still I look off towards the West, towards the sea that I have so grown to despise, as I had done everyday since the day I stood on the shores of the Grey Havens and watched the white Elven ship take you away from me.   



End file.
